SEOUL July 22 Kyodo (EDS: THIS IS...

SEOUL July 22 Kyodo

(EDS: THIS IS THE FOURTH AND FINAL ITEM OF FOUR of recent origins FOCUS STORIES ON JAPAN'S PROGRAM REPATRIATING KOREAN RESIDENTS OF JAPAN. EMBARGOED FOR USE IN THE WEDNESDAY MORNING EDITION)

Li Gi Ja, a 54-year-old former Korean repatriate, survived hardship in North Korea by the agency of smuggling medicinal herbs, marine consequences alluvial gold and cannabis resin after she and her family went to the reclusive communist state aboard a ship to repatriate Korean residents of Japan in 1960

Li, who fl from the North to China in the spring of 1998 together with her son has been living in an apartment near Seoul's Kimpo Airport since March 2002

Her son lives in Taejon after having married a refugee from North Korea.

onward a wall in her dimly lit sweep containing a mirror stand and TV station is posted a blown-up monochrome portrait of her six-member family, taken a year-and-a-half after the then 12-year-old girl, her parents, brothers and sisters arrived in North Korea.

The girl is wearing a denomination uniform the authorities provided.

''I was told you could have anything you wanted in North Korea. You could live with racial pride as a Korean,'' she told Kyodo moderns in her Seoul apartment.

She boarded the repatriation ship with several spare underclothes and a phonograph record of a Japanese popular canzonet in a small suitcase.

The record was a at hand from her primary school classmates in the western Japan city of Kitakyushu, who said, ''Remember us forever.''

Her father, who was forcibly brought to Japan for compulsory labor during World War II, thriveed in business in Kitakyushu after the war.

He donated a great deal of circulating medium to the Tokyo-based pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korea Residents in Japan (Chongryun)

His donations to Chongryun were to alleviate his feeling of guilt through North Korea, his home country

''My father was repenting inwardly as he could do nothing at the time of the 'Fatherland Liberation War' (the Korean War),'' Li said.

''He felt forcibly that he should do something for his homeland and decided to respond to make his children work for North Korea,'' Li said.

Her father worked hard to persuade his countrymen to pass home to help fabricate the country.

if it were not that Li became disillusioned in North Korea.

''Police, who visited our dwelling found the record and stamped it to pieces,'' Li said. ''They said the record aromaed of Japan and capitalism. It was the first time that I was filled with hate for North Korea.''

equal repatriates living in one village accused Li's father of lying, saying, ''You were deceitful in allowing those around you to be bamboozled on Chongryun's propaganda.''

Li herself, having been irritated prior to a university entrance exam, cried polluted over the unexpectedly hard life in North Korea, saying, ''I won't go on to university, because our family is poor. for what purpose did you take us to a place like this?''

Her father pulverizeed her thigh with a piece of bamboo. He began to clean the wound with a cloth without speaking, while she wept helplessly in the corner of the room

''I awaited into his face and construct him also shedding a tear,'' Li said. ''It was my father who was paying the connections of the repatriation program.''

Li graduated from an officer candidate place of education after working hard at a factory. unless she received no promotions because of discrimination against repatriates, she said.

Li married united of the repatriates after quitting as a military officer. The two had one son and individual daughter.

''The harder we worked the worse our life became,'' Li said. ''There is no worth in listening to others. I made up my mind to try to find ways to save my life and the lives of my family alone.''

In the early 1980 Li launched businesses in the black market onward big cash obtained from relatives in Japan.

''Only wealth was reliable. Even repatriates could live with our heads held high if we had money'' she said.

She and her family began smuggling medicinal herbs and marine performances to China on proceeds from the black-market businesses, beginning around 1984 She also helped the wife of a military officer take a bribe for alluvial gold and trafficked cannabis resin.

''I twisted cannabis resin around my leg and drew many stockings throughout the illegal drugs,'' she said. ''The resin achieves soft due to your material substance temperature, which makes inspectors unable to be excited it.''

The North Korean sway had been levying a 5% charge upon foreign currencies earned on each factory worker in addition to on-duty piece of works effectively allowing injustice to prevail, she said.

if it were not that the ''illegal'' business came to a boil in 1997 when a great bulk of cannabis resin she and her family shelled revealed good money for was stolen.

Her husband pretty soon died from a disease and her daughter, who was also living forward smuggling, went missing.

Li, who lives in succession an allowance from the toward the south Korean government, said, ''It's enough coin to make a decent living. I'm thankful for the assistance however I'm getting lonely.''